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I’m starting my training with Hal Higdon’s novice 5k plan because I have not run regularly since I ran a half marathon last December. I ran the Decker Challenge in Austin and it was my first half marathon ever.

Do my fingers look less swollen like this?

I had never run that far before. In fact, before starting training for that race I had only ever run 6-8k tops.

For a first half marathon, I picked a HARD one. The Decker Challenge is full of hills, with a really long incline around mile 10.

Not my photo. I can’t believe I ran this.

I used Hal Higdon’s novice plan for half marathons to train for it. The longest run you do in that plan is a 10 miler the week before the race. According to Hal, you didn’t need to run more than that before your first half marathon, because the adrenaline and excitement you experience during the race will get you through to the end. Well, for me it was sheer willpower. After that huge hill at mile 10, it took EVERYTHING I had to get through that race. I HAD to finish. And I HAD to finish having run the whole thing. Those thoughts were the only things keeping me going. I had no music to push me and no podcasts to distract me. John was on a business trip at the time and I didn’t have many running friends or people who would willingly wake up early on Sunday morning to cheer me on. So, I didn’t even have that to keep me going…. just me and my thoughts. I was also running in between two pace groups, the 2:15 group I believe and the 2:20 group.For a lot of those last few miles I was running by myself.

I have never been good at running. Always huffing and puffing and lagging behind. Hating my life with every step. I remember being a senior in high school and having to run just one km during PE and I was dying. I was only 18, how embarrasing, right? I wasn’t overweight, just really unfit. I also have a pretty high resting heart rate. In the 90’s last time I checked, which really bothers me.

I didn’t start running for exercise until I was a Sophomore in college and I had gained the Sophomore 15. I had to start out really slowly. Run/walking until I could do 3 miles without walking. I was pretty confident in my running at that point. So much so that during the annual sportsfest at the university I was attending I signed up to run the one mile race after the original runner had cancelled. Sportsfest was just an event where different floors of the different dorm buildings at the school competed against each other. Some students were athletes, most were not, so it wasn’t a super serious competition. I had just had a bowl of oatmeal and the race was in half an hour, “yeah, I can totally do it.”

Look at how confident I was

Well, I nearly barfed after that race. I did come in third though, out of four.

After that I didn’t run for a few years until I moved to Amsterdam and lived near the Amsterdamse bos (Amsterdam forest).

Amsterdamse bos on a really good day. Also not my photo!

I decided I would start running in there and I started out slowly until I could run 6-8k without stopping. I would always quit in the winter time though because I couldn’t and still can’t stand the cold. In fact, it was the cold that stopped me from going running last year after the Decker Challenge and I lived in TEXAS.

When I moved to Austin I lived right next to a busy trail which was always full of runners.

Just one of the many things I miss about Austin.

I got inspired to start running again after yet another hiatus and signed up for the Thanksgiving Turkey Trot 5 mile race. I had so much fun I decided I was going to train for a half marathon and the rest… the rest is history.

I have about nine months to train for this next half marathon which is why I’m starting with the 5k plan. I’m also taking my dog out running with me and he needs to slowly build up his miles too. He has gotten way out of shape since we left Austin.

Time to get fit doggy!

I want to try to keep running after this race. Now that I live in California there are a bunch of cool races around: Big Sur, the North Face challenge (I think), the San Francisco half, the San Francisco women’s half, and so on and so forth.

I do really miss the trail I used to live by in Austin though. I just don’t see as many runners out here. I like running where other people are also running around me.

Training is going well so far. This week the longest run was 1.75 miles. Piet, my dog, is getting used to it too. When he hears my watch beep he starts running. I listen to podcasts while I run. If I listen to music I have a tendency to blast it and that’s not good for my ears. I find podcasts a lot more distracting than music too. I try to listen to inspirational podcasts to help me feel hopeful about my life. It’s a good start to my day.

I decided I wanted to start a Youtube channel with my husband and I finally posted our first video yesterday.

I’ll be posting weekly videos, mostly about the RV and what we want to do with it. At least for now. I will probably expand it to include other topics as I go along. I’m excited to learn more about video editing.

In other news, I finally went ahead and downloaded the My Fitness Pal app and I’ve been using it for the past four days and it has been an eye opener! I’m happy with it and definitely recommend it. Seven weeks to lose 10 lbs! Let’s go!

Life Changes

I haven’t posted in over a month. In that time my husband and I left Florida to move to San Jose, California for my husband’s new job.

We are currently in temporary housing provided by my husband’s job for two more months. We’ve been looking around for another place to live but everything is crazy expensive. We were living in Austin before coming here where rent prices were pretty good compared to here. Honestly, I shouldn’t have been complaining back then. So far, we haven’t really made a real decision on where to move to after our time in this apartment is up. Good thing we still have some time!

We used PODS to move our stuff here from Texas, and we’ve unloaded everything into our already furnished apartment. It’s kind of a mess in here.

We’ve been selling some of our stuff on craigslist and the letgo app (which works really well! Especially on the weekends). We are attempting to downsize because we will likely end up in a very small apartment after this.

I miss Austin a lot. I miss my friends and the city, and the ease of getting around. We lived really close to downtown Austin. Right now we are living in a suburb in North San Jose. I want to make the best of this. This job is a really amazing opportunity for my husband. I had a really tough time our first week here but I think I’m beginning to adjust. I’m at least a little bit busier now that we have all of our stuff and I need to go through and sell everything we don’t need.

Fitness Updates

Since being here I’ve started working out regularly again. After we left Austin in March I did not work out at all. The only activity I did was a lot of walking when we went travelling in Thailand and that was about it. This apartment complex includes a very nice gym with cardio machines, free weights, strength training machines, TRX bands, kettlebells, and a yoga/cycling room. I’ll take photos of it next time I workout. I’ve been working out 4 times a week. Three days of strength training and one day of cardio, although really, I do a little bit of cardio before I lift weights too. My first week I was really sore and I felt extremely out of shape. I’ve been slowly getting better. I weighed myself yesterday and I’m at around 128 lbs. My goal is 115-120 lbs and I want to reach it by the time we move out of this apartment. I will be updating on that regularly!

Project Updates

So, my husband and I bought an RV! We bought a 21 foot 1988 Toyota Sunrader. We looked for RVs on craiglist and also visited a few dealerships in the area but we absolutely fell in love with the look of sunraders when we went and saw one for the first time. We didn’t buy the first one we saw, but ended up buying a nice one from an older couple. It has automatic transmission which I am happy about because I didn’t want to have to learn to get comfortable driving an RV AND learn stick shift at the same time. I’m not opposed to learning stick shift and would love to learn it some day, but maybe not on our first ever RV.

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The interior needs some TLC. We’re excited to clean up and redo some of the interior and that’s going to be a fun project for the both of us for the next few months. We need to reseal everything, paint, make cushion cases (maybe replace some of the cushions), replace all the carpet, get solar panels, and many other small repairs and additions. I’m pretty excited and I can’t wait to go camping!

As for other projects, I’m also going to start knitting something for my niece tonight. I’ll be posting about that later too.

Finally, my promise is to update this blog regularly, maybe once or twice a week. Now I’m off to read some other blogs!

So, these were my meals today. Breakfast was the usual. We ran out of juice today so won’t be having that until we buy it at the farmer’s market on Thursday. Lunch was edamame, coconut curry (carrots, potatoes, tofu), and a small pita bread. Dinner was refried beans mixed in with veggies that were cooked in coconut oil and basmati rice. I also had about 15 tortilla chips dipped in my husband’s plate of refried beans and rice.

I honestly don’t know what the calorie count is for today. I also did zero exercise today. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow. I usually end up losing weight if I wake up in the morning really hungry.

Personally, given the little amount of exercise I’m getting these days, I think this is too much food. At least it’s not a binge though.

The juice is a strawberry orange juice we get at the farmer’s market. Under the oats are half an apple, half a banana, and 8 almonds.

I have no idea how many calories this is. If I had to guess I’d guess around 1800 calories. I’m aiming for 1500 calories for weight loss. I probably would have managed that today if my MIL had’t cooked dinner :).

As for exercise, I did a one hour intermediate yoga class from the website doyogawithme.com and I walked the dog in the morning and evening totaling 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Well, I have NOT been doing well on the weight loss front. I’m not giving up though. NEVER!

On Friday I weighed myself, took measurements, and took before photos. I’m too embarrassed to post the pictures but I’ll post all the other stats.

Height – 5’6, or around 170 cm

Weight – 58.5 kg or 128.7 lbs

Measurements:

Bust – 34

Waist – 25.5

Hips – 35.5

Thigh (around the largest part) – 21.5

Arm (around largest part) – 10.5

Stomach (just below belly button) – 30 (I was bloated, also I have a long torso if this is hard to imagine with a 25.5 inch waist)

And that’s what I’m working with. I know there are people out there who might see this and think “girl, you don’t need to lose weight.” Well… I want to so I will. I don’t feel comfortable. My clothes don’t feel right and I need to be healthier anyway.

My goal weight is around 115 lbs. Next week we are moving out of our apartment and we will drive to Florida to stay with family. We won’t be moving to our new place in California until the beginning of June so for two months I won’t have a scale. That’s okay though, I will travel with my measuring tape and I will always be able to tell by the way clothes fit me.

I’m tired of eating like shit y’all. Yeah, you can be vegan and eat like shit. It’s not hard at all. I need to eat more fruits, veggies, and legumes and less breads, cereals, and sweets.

Sorry for neglecting you but I was REALLY busy the last two weeks with South by Southwest (sxsw). It’s the most wonderful time of the year! and I volunteered for a platinum badge this time. Saw a lot of movie premieres, shook hands with the first lady, went to a few talks, ate a TON of free food… so you know what that means. I haven’t been doing my 1500 calories a day thing.

Well, I’m ready to get back to it. I have five weeks before I go on vacation to Orlando, and about 8 weeks before we travel abroad. I NEED TO LOOK GOOD.

I’ll weigh in tomorrow morning, take my measurements, take a photo and all that jazz and then get right to it.